As construction of the new web offset facility adjoining the Polestar Sheffield gravure plant gathers pace, Polestar has revealed what impact the £50m re-equip will have on its four other UK web offset sites: Bicester, Chantry, Colchester and Petty.

While the former BGP site in Bicester and Polestar Chantry in Wakefield will be unaffected by the new Sheffield supersite, Polestar Colchester will be scaled back and become a contractual site and Leeds-based Polestar Petty has been marked for closure.

Polestar Group chief operating officer Peter Andreou, explained the plan for the two sites to PrintWeek.

"Unfortunately Colchester works in a very tough market - it's B2B, the runs are getting shorter, some is going online - and what we're going to do is take some capacity out and create a contractual house so we're not reliant on the commercial market," he said.

"Then with regard to Petty we're going to start a transition; once the new presses start to ramp up [in Sheffield] we'll start taking out our older capacity and eventually over an 18 month period we'll be out of Leeds as well."

As part of the plan to turn Colchester into a contractual facility, Polestar will decommission one of the three 32pp webs at the site, leaving two 32pp presses and a mini-web and resulting in the loss of around 63 of the 125 jobs at the site.

Polestar Petty currently employs 250 staff in Leeds although it is hoped that the bulk of those jobs could be preserved by transferring to the new Sheffield web offset facility, some 34 miles away.

"In reality, a majority of that 250 potentially could be retained. Some people may shift from Leeds to Chantry in Wakefield [and] some from Wakefield down to Sheffield but I think until we start that process it's very difficult for us to second-guess what the take-up is going to be and also who's going to go from where," said Andreou.

He added: "It's very difficult because whenever you're creating a situation like this it creates uncertainty and we're not taking that lightly - it's families and it's employees that have been with us for a long time - but this is really underpinning web offset and introducing investment that's been needed for a long time and we're very hopeful that it's going to secure long-term employment."

A 45-day consultation has started with staff at Colchester and Petty at the end of which Polestar will decommission the 32pp press at Colchester.

Meanwhile, Polestar Chantry is currently commissioning the M4000 that was relocated to Wakefield from Colchester; the press is expected to be operational in July.

The transition of work from Petty to Sheffield will begin once the first two 96pp presses go into live production at Sheffield towards the end of August/early September, with press capacity moving first followed by finishing, and is expected to complete in Q4 2015.

Andreou said that it was Polestar's goal to communicate clearly to staff what the plan was and how the application process for the new jobs at Sheffield would work to avoid uncertainty.

"We'll make it very clear how it will work and then people will have almost instantly the opportunity to start applying for the new positions - in the next day or so we'll be releasing the [positions] for people to be able to start to apply," he said. "I think it's important that people are fully aware what the plan is so that it gives them an opportunity to plan from a personal perspective and make their decisions."

Andreou added that Polestar would encourage as many employees as possible to apply for the new positions and that he hoped the majority of the staff at Polestar Petty would apply. "Obviously it's a bit more difficult [with Colchester] because of the location but we're hoping some will apply for the new roles and we've already had some interest, which is encouraging," he said.

The new Sheffield building should be weatherproof before the end of the month.